


baby teeth

by orphan_account



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: (noncon is NOT between rick and negan), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-01 08:30:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17863922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Kidnapped and brutally assaulted, Rick and Negan must face the cold world together, alone.





	1. chains

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE PLEASE, dont read if you are in anyway uncomfortable with a noncon. This fic will deal heavily with a rape against Rick and the emotional aftermath of it.

A solid pounding aches through Negan’s skull, a drumming that leaves his stomach twisting. Pinpricks send fiery waves of discomfort down his arms as he warily cracks an eye open to find himself in an unknown room, the lighting low inky black and the stench of it overbearing. This new world always smelled like a fucking shit hole, but this is something different, something hungry, desperate, and stinks of stale bodies and urges.

He has to get the ever-loving shit out of here; something’s not fucking right, not in the least. The last thing he remembered was driving towards Hilltop ready to end Rick’s tirade, and his people, when a car came crashing into him, sending him veering and flipping off the road.

Now, making a move to get the hell out of this place, he attempts to stand, a sharp pain wrapping around his wrists as his body is forced back into position, with a loud clack of metal on metal.

_What the fuck?_

It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that he’s chained—handcuffed?—to something. A fence, maybe? No. His eyes have yet to adjust to the dark, but the thick scent and stuffy air assures him that he’s somewhere indoors, the ground beneath his ass soft and plush—a mattress. He’s chained to a fucking metal headboard. As he tugs again roughly against the restraints despite the pain, the metal headboard posts refuse to give. He’s in deep shit and Negan isn’t willing to drown in it. He lurches forward only to feel the warm slickness of blood seep down his fingers as the handcuffs dig into the skin of his wrist.

Suddenly, a voice slices through the darkness.

“I’ve been trying since before you woke up, it’s not going to break.”

Negan flips his head to the left, and damn he was dumb as shit for not realizing sooner. A weight in the mattress dips by his side, another person next to him, another scrape of metal-on-metal as the person shifts their weight, no doubt handcuffed to the bed as well.

“Well, I’ll be damned if I’m not burning in whatever hell this is, but Prick, I think I’d recognize your sweet voice if I heard it anywhere.”

The sound of Rick grinding his teeth in anger echoes through the room and it gives Negan some small sense of satisfaction despite their situation.  Slowly, his eyes adjust to the darkness, taking in the man next to him. Rick’s face is one of panic. Of sheer and utter terror like the night when Negan bashed in Red and the Asian kid’s heads. Sweat ran rivulets down Rick’s jaw, pooling at his collar bone, a nasty bruise blooming on the side of his temple. Yet the thing that Negan finds most alarming, is that Rick’s stripped down to his boxers, a few scattering of bruises painting his chest and hips.

“What kinda fucked up shit’s happening here?” Negan growls, eyeing Rick’s slumped-over form.

Rick returns Negan’s stare for a moment, brief and short-lived, and Negan sees true horror in his eyes. 

“I—I don’t know.”

“How the fuck do you not know, Rick. One of us got us into this situation and it sure as hell wasn’t me. And let me tell you I hate when people don’t know shit and I hate when people get me into situations I don’t like.”

Rick  snaps his head around so quickly, Negan feels the air around him whip with it. “None of this shit would be happening if you hadn’t killed Glenn or Abraham.”

Jaw twitching with annoyance and rage, Negan says, “We back to that shit again, Rick. You wanna play innocent but you killed my men first. You set this shit in motion.”

“You and your _‘Saviors’_ were headed to Hilltop. Innocent people live there. Children. I may not be innocent, and neither are you, but _they_ are,” Rick growls, and Negan stiffens as he feels Rick begin to struggle against his restraints again. He smells fresh blood as Rick pulls and bumps against Negan’s shoulder with his efforts.

“And who set that shit in motion, Rick? All you had to do was cooperate,” Negan hisses back, his annoyance growing.“You’re gonna rip your hands off, good luck with that.”

“Just shut up,” Rick’s voice breaks with panic, a shattered thing and Negan raises a brow watching Rick’s chest rise and fall with quickened breaths. “We have to get out of here.”

“We?” Negan inquires as Rick shoots him a look—dare he say a pleading look. “How’d we get here? Wherever the fuck this is?”

“I don’t know,” Rick answers, stopping his struggles as the rise and fall of his chest hastens, “Last thing I remember was driving you off the road.”

With a whistle Negan speaks, “You big-balled motherfucker.” He’s unsure if it’s anger or some weird form of admiration he feels for Rick’s persistent effort to defeat him despite it all, even though the persistent effort meant people’s lives and Negan didn’t like to waste a life if it wasn’t necessary.

A noise sounds outside the small bedroom and Rick winces with it, eyes wide. It isn’t walkers; Negan’s keen alpha nose could pick up their rotten scent for a mile away. This is distinctly human, sweat-soaked and reeking of putrid violence, and more than one—a stray group of riled up alphas. Dangerous before all this dead walking shit happened, even more dangerous since the world fell to shit. Whoever’s out there chained them up for whatever fucking reason and he’s not too keen on finding out.

Negan can face the threat of death, but, glancing at Rick—a beta—Rick has something far worse to fear from this group—probably had already had a taste of it judging by how bruised up and stripped-down he was. Negan swallows his disgust. He might kill when needed, but that shit doesn’t fly with him. Never had and never will.

“Don’t think of it as me saving your life, Rick. Hell, you’re the last person I’d want to save, but we are getting the fuck out of here, together. And whatever shits going on between us we can settle after.”

“You ain’t goin’ nowhere,” A voice drawls from the other side of the door, when suddenly it swings open, casting them in light so bright Negan fears he’s been blinded, his eyes taking a moment to adjust.

An alpha stands before them, skin covered in grime and hair thin, his tooth filled grin spread wide across his face. “Found you two sprawled in the road at the edge of a car wreck., It’s a blessing no roamers got ya’. Brought ya’ both here out of the kindness of my own heart.”

“And how fucking kind you are.” Fake smiling, Negan twitches his shoulders, motioning at the cuffs around his wrist. “Now if you’d kindly let us go, that’d be just fucking great, make my dick hard from being so damn thankful.”

The sound of laughter fills the small room and Negan sees a few other smaller—thinner—alphas gathered behind the first one, “See we can’t let ya’ go without getting somethin’ in return. We’re kind folk ya’ see, we saved yer lives, but we expect a little reciprocation we’d like to take yer pretty friend here for a ride.”

It’s then Rick truly began to struggle in earnest, thrashing and kicking on the bed like a caged and cornered animal. His pupils are dilated, eyes wide and it only seems to fuel the alpha’s hunger further.

“Like fuck you are, let me fucking tell you, me and this fucking fella here,” Negan says, tilting his head towards Rick, who’s lost in his attempts for freedom and seems to have drowned out the world around him. “We aren’t friends but I’d be damned if I even let that shit happen to an enemy.”

“Ya’ see,” The alpha laughs, leaning over Negan with a wild grin, his breath hot and rotten as it ghosts across Negan’s brow, “Ya’ musta been one of those left-wingers back before all this shit fell, believing omegas have rights, but shit fell and they didn’t have rights before all this. They sure as hell don’t have them now.”

With a cackle, Negan grins at the other alpha.“He’s not an omega.”

“Ya’ must be stupider than I thought. Maybe I shouldn’t let ya’ live since you got damned as much of brain as those roamers do,” the alpha chuckles. “Ya’ test him out, check his pants? Because I assure ya’ we did.”

Color leaves Negan’s face in one quick beat of his heart only to return in deep angry red as he clenches his fist and jaw. They’d assaulted Rick while Negan was unconscious. He doesn’t dare think how far they took it, but far enough to know Rick is not, in fact, a beta. Back before all this went down, back with Lucille, together they’d believed in omega rights. Omegas deserved to vote, work, have equal health care and  know that rape against an omega was rape. And these motherfuckers, these dirty, slimy excuses for human beings clearly didn’t believe that before, and clearly don’t believe it now.

Omegas were rare before all this went down and Negan suspected hardly any—if any—survived the dead walking. He’s unsure, though, and he doesn’t have a fucking clue if he’d ever encountered an omega before the world went to hell. Hell, maybe he had; he’d heard talk of omegas who took illegal heat-suppressants and covered themselves in artificial beta scent, and it seemed Rick had done just that. The fucker had camouflaged himself his whole life and Negan applauded him for making it so far, for even fooling him.

But Negan also knew if this went any further, the chances of hiding it anymore were slim. Very fucking slim. Rick could wind up pregnant, marked, or dead—because, if outed, omegas barely made it before the apocalypse they sure as hell weren’t going to make it during. And as much as he wanted Rick to pay, as much as he wanted Rick out of his way, this sure as shit wasn’t the way it was going to happen.

The first alpha leans over, sneering down at him with sharp angry teeth. Negan rears his head back, slamming it into the alpha’s face with a crash, feeling his own world swim with it. Rick gasps next to him, watching the alpha fall back with a loud, “ _Fuck_.”

The alpha is on his feet in moments, blood running thick and red from his nose. He wipes it away with a large hand.“Ya’ gonna make this more fun.”

“Chain him up, don’t want him fighting for this pretty omega here,” the alpha says.

Negan can’t even blink before the rest of the group is on him. He fights them, like hell he does. He was never one to give up and, in this situation, he wouldn’t fucking dare. But there are five of them and one of him, his arms chained and incapacitated. Although he dared not admit it, they overpower him quickly, chaining his legs to the end bedpost after he lands a few blows with his foot. One alpha keeps a solid hand on Negan’s chest as he thrashes, spits, and slurs at him while the others descend on Rick, chaining his legs open on the bottom bedposts.

And holy fucking shit, this had to be some fucked up nightmare, but he felt his pain clearly, saw everything through unfiltered eyes. This is real. This is happening and there was nothing he can do to prevent it.

Yearning to look away, he forces his eyes to meet Rick’s panicked, fearful ones, and hopes in some damn way even though it’s coming from him, he can offer some sort of comfort, something for Rick to focus on while this hell goes down. Nearly heaving when the sound of Rick’s boxers tearing fills the room, his stomach turning as Rick cries out as the first alpha breaches his cunt. The scent of it all too much, Rick’s omega fear bitter, the rusty smell of blood, and the pungent aroma of alpha arousal. Negan forces bile down, as Rick pinches his eyes shut against the pain of it.

“Rick,” Negan rasps against his chains and the weight of the alpha on his chest, “look at me. Keep your eyes on mine. Stay focused on me.”

Much to his surprise, Rick’s eyes snap open, tear-filled and red-rimmed, overflowing with fear and horror, but they remain steady on Negan’s. The mattress shakes and creaks beneath them, the weight of the alpha and his thrust sending the bed rocking, yet Rick keeps his eyes on Negan’s through it all. The world narrows down to Rick, the sound of the alpha’s groan as he comes, fills Rick’s womb with it, and passes Rick off to the next alpha. It becomes a haze in Negan’s mind, white static he tries to drown out but knows won’t leave him—won’t ever fucking leave him.

He loses count of how many times they’ve cycled through Rick, took their turns and used him up like he’s less than human. Negan worries his lip, bites down so hard he tastes blood, wondering if he’d even have a lip left after all this, wonders if there’ll even be anything fucking left of them after this.

“He’s gotta pretty unmarked neck here,” one of the alphas says while pounding into Rick, and for the first time since Negan requested, Rick’s eyes snap away from him and with it, the world comes crashing down on Negan, his rage, his hatred, his disgusting boiling and furious pulsing through his veins—his helplessness. He was helpless—hopeless—to stop this, to end this. He’s never been weaker in his life, hadn’t even felt this weak and helpless when Lucille was sick.

“Please don’t,” Rick pleads softly, begging to no avail, and Negan bucks, fights against the chains and the alpha holding him down, knows the struggle is pointless but fucking struggling nonetheless. Unsure when the alpha bites down on Rick’s neck—marking him forever as property, as something owned and used—if it’s his own voice that cries out or Rick’s.

“ _I’ll kill you_ ,” Negan hears himself growl, surprised to realize his cheeks are wet, the taste of salt filling his mouth, the rage that consumes him a welcomed disease.

“You won’t even have the chance,” the first alpha grins, Negan sees the flash of a club swinging towards his head, and then the world goes black.

…

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU SO SO MUCH, to milarca for being my beta, damn you saved my life and made this chapter understandable.


	2. punches

Waking, every part of Rick aches. Strongly, subtly; there isn’t an inch of his muscles—skin—that doesn’t scream out in various levels of pain. The ground beneath him is harsh, no longer the starkly uncomforting comfort of the mattress. The mattress. The alphas. However long ago it was, it comes crashing over him in waves of nausea. The agony of being breached for the first time in years. The humiliation of being stripped down, forced, taken apart from the inside out. And Rick wasn’t sure if he could put himself together again correctly.

He heaves, tasting bitter stomach acid, and can’t remember the last time he ate as bile stings his tongue.

“Rick,” a voice says calmly, a string of fear twining around him before his mind registers who produced it. Negan.

The sun beats down hot on Rick’s back as he weakly tries to rise on his knees, the muscles of his inner thighs protesting, and a dull ache pulsing between his legs. The gravel beneath his knees cuts into his sensitive skin and he hisses as the world begins to spin, collapsing down on his side. The blue sky and white clouds above him, twirling and exploding in a kaleidoscope of color. Rick is dizzy with it, like a bad roller-coaster ride. A ride he wonders if he’ll ever get off of.

“Fuck you,” he wheezes in Negan’s general direction, remembers his dark eyes as he gave Rick something to focus on, anything but what was happening. And maybe he’s becoming delusion, because he swore back there, he saw tears cling to Negan’s thick black lashes.

He doesn’t want to think about it, feels another wave of sickness wash over him as if he were thrown back, the plush mattress beneath him, the weight and stink of the alphas over him. He hears a sob, a pathetic broken noise, and realizes it’s his own, the force of it wracking through him with incredible strength. Shivers quake over him, the fall wind chilled with approaching winter rushes over his bare exposed form.

A warmth suddenly settles over him, the scent of leather and cedarwood consuming him, and Rick hates how it’s some sort of comfort, how weak he’s become to find comfort in it—in him at all. Negan’s jacket rests over his shoulder, in an attempt to cover him, to hide his body, shield him from the elements.

Rick tears it off his shoulders, tossing it back at Negan with such force it startles them both. Rick breathless from it, heart hammering hard against the cage of his ribs.

“I don’t need your pity.”

“For fucks sake, Rick, it’s not pity,” Negan sighs, his voice unreadable. Rick doesn’t dare face him. He can’t, not after what he saw happen, not after he saw Rick forced open and torn apart.

Rick wants someone to blame, anyone to take this out on. Swinging his fist, his knuckles connect with Negan’s jaw, sending the alpha flying back against the road with a loud, _whack!_ Before Negan even has a chance to react, Rick is on him, over him, fist connecting with his face repeatedly. The scent of blood singes his nose, the taste of his own tears flooding his mouth.

He’s screaming, he realizes, loud enough to send birds flying from the trees surrounding them, their loud calls white static in his ears. Loud enough to no doubt draw walkers, but he doesn’t give a shit; let them both be eaten alive.

Negan doesn’t fight back, accepts the punches like they’re his punishment to take and Rick can’t stand it. Can’t stand any of it, surprised when he feels Negan’s hand, slowly, gently collect Rick’s fist in his own. If Negan could ever be described as gentle...

“Enough,” Negan says sternly, carefully lifting Rick off him. “You want someone to fucking blame, I get that shit, Rick. I can’t even imagine the hell that’s going down in your mind right now. But that shit, that wasn’t me—I wouldn’t—I didn’t do that shit to you.”

Rick dares a glance at Negan, his face swollen from Rick’s punches, blood flowing in heavy rivulets down Negan’s jaw and neck, his lip split open. Good. He deserved it. But Rick wonders why a small twinge of guilt pulses through his chest, as Negan spits blood on the road, wiping his face clean with the back of his hand.

“You think I’m a monster Rick, but I’m not. I’m not that level of sick.”

“I’m s—” Rick starts and immediately shuts down. Was he about to apologize to Negan? Negan who killed his friends—his family. Negan who got them into this shit to begin with. He wanted Negan dead,  he needed Negan dead to heal the wounds left by Glenn and Abraham—and Carl.

“Don’t, Rick. Don’t even fucking try,” Negan says, quickly catching what Rick was about to say, “You needed a punching bag, I’m fine being one. You want someone to blame, that shits fine too. Shit, I know I would. But don’t apologize for what you just did and don’t ever apologize for what happened.”

With a stretch, Negan stands, shadow cast over Rick’s prone body, looming over him. Rick wonders why he isn’t intimidated by Negan’s tall form.“Can you stand?”

“I—I’m not sure,” Rick says, and startles when Negan reaches out to him, hand offered in support. Hesitantly, Rick accepts the offered hand. Negan’s palms are warm despite the chilled weather, his skin calloused and oddly reassuring. On shaky legs, Rick stands, the world collapsing beneath his feet, spinning, twisting and turning, as if it flipped on its axis.

“You sure as shit aren’t sure,” Negan huffs, catching Rick when Rick’s knees threaten to give out. He’d never felt weaker, felt closer to defeat than the night when he first met Negan. The same Negan he literally leaned against for support. “You need me to carry you?”

There is no scorn or judgement in Negan’s question; no humor, either, and it sends Rick into a fit of shame that he’s never felt before. “I’ll be fine,” he assures stubbornly, pushing out of Negan’s arms and taking a few slow and pained steps forward, dried blood and cum scrapping sorely at his inner thighs.

He’s limping, visibly, he knows. But Negan remains quiet, following slow careful steps behind him. He reaches out occasionally when Rick loses his footing, but it’s help that Rick brushes off with frustration. He isn’t fragile, he isn’t broken. He doesn’t need help, even though his mind—his body—screams out for it.

“You just gonna keep walking the road with your bare ass out like a fucking new born baby, Rick?” Negan asks after Rick furiously continues forward, his face a deep angry red at Negan’s remark.

“What else am I supposed to do?” Voice breaking, Rick turns on Negan, facing him again. Hopelessness—helplessness—suffocates him, presses on his chest like a stone as he struggles to take a breath, “What the fuck am I supposed to do?” He’s horrified when his shoulders begin to shake, vision blurred by a new onslaught of tears.

His whole world falls apart. Everything he hid, everything he protected for years, gone. He can’t go back to how things were, can’t be taken seriously as a leader anymore. His truths are out in the open, naked as he is. Alexandria can’t be home anymore, his friends will view him differently as someone weaker, someone not worth looking up to or following ,someone to be protected, and not someone who can offer protection. He’s weak for allowing this to happen to himself; he should’ve fought harder, should’ve ripped the alphas’ throats out with his teeth like he had when Carl was attacked. But they were outnumbered, and he was terrified, horrified what would happen if he lashed out, if it would’ve worsened their already brutal attack. Because these alphas, they discovered his reality.

Not even Carl knew it; didn’t know Rick carried him for nine months in his womb; he thought that Lori bore him. Carl didn’t even know the identity of his real father; the one who impregnated Rick. Only Carl’s father, someone Rick doesn’t want to think about, Lori, and Rick himself knew the truth. They hid it from the world and the father and Lori protected Rick for years. Rick didn’t want to think about Carl right now. That wasn’t a road of thought he wanted to go down, not when he was dealing with another wound, a wound that tore the scabs off all his old wounds. He’s grieving too many things—he’s lost too many things.

Hiding isn’t an option anymore, he thinks as he runs a shaky hand over his throat, over the various markings the alphas left on his skin, each swollen ridge left by sharp teeth. They’d all marked him as their own, and he stunk like property, like something used and thrown away and any alpha—any beta—who came within a few feet of him would know what—and only what—he was good for.

“You want my pants?”

“What—?” Rick asks, the hazy visions of his mind and tear-filled eyes breaking with confusion.

“Rick, I asked if you wanted my fucking pants,” Negan offers again, hands on his belt, ready to undo it. Rick’s stomach jumps at the motion, lodged in his throat as he remembers the alphas over him, the clank of their belt buckles opening, before they painfully pressed into him, took him and everything he had to offer.

“Shit,” Negan swears, as if realizing the errors of his ways, dropping his hands to his sides in quick surrender, “only trying to offer some comfort, Rick. Shit, Rick, what happened, what happened to you? That shit is not hot with me.”

“Why?” Rick asks.

“Why is it not hot with me? Rick, despite what you think, I’m not a fucking monster—” Negan groans, sounding annoyed but also being surprisingly patient with Rick, a patience Rick couldn’t even begin to understand.

“No, why? Why are you offering me comfort? Why haven’t you fucking abandoned me on the road? Why are you offering me your fucking pants?” Rick hisses, feeling irrational. Palms sweating and knuckles clenched white, he yearns to punch Negan’s lights out again, but can’t  bring himself to swing his fist. His mind swirls, brain struggling to comprehend, put the pieces of the puzzle together. How could Negan murder his people, threaten to kill him, and now offer him pants? Offer him comfort? Gaze at him with soft, sympathetic eyes.

Negan’s eyes. He gives a small heave, can’t think of them without thinking about what happened. About the alphas, the pain of being stretched open for the first time since Carl’s conception - since his birth - the squeaking mattress and smothering stench of it all.

Negan sighs, again with more patience than Rick could ever want - expect - from him, “Like I said Rick, I’m not a fucking monster.”

In the end, Rick hesitantly accepts Negan’s offered pants, and Negan, to his humiliation and embarrassment, helps him dress. The legs of them are too long and the waist is uncomfortably tight, but it’s better than walking and wandering around naked. To his horror, Negan looks unaffected about walking around in his boxers, and doesn’t shiver when the wind blows up against his bare legs.

Rick watches wide-eyed as Negan unwinds the scarf around his neck. Rick flinching slightly when he hands it out to him. Eyeing the scarf with suspicion, Rick carefully takes it in hand.

“Thought you might want to cover that shit up,” Negan says, waving at his own throat with a cough. “You know?”

“Thank you,” Rick says, hating that he’s thanking _Negan_ of all people, unable to handle or process the kindness, separate it from the man Negan had previously shown himself to be. Swallowing the lump in his throat, over the shame of the weakness devouring him, Rick winds the scarf around his neck, the warmth of it seeping into his skin and throbbing against the bites. It’s like a bandage, a temporary fix, but it can’t truly fix what happened, can hide it visibly but not the scent of it, not the pain of it—the horror of it. It’s a scar that he’ll carry physically and internally for the rest of his life.

“Don’t thank me, Rick. Just fucking don’t.” Negan sounds conflicted, as if his shoulders are heavy, as if it’s his world that had flipped on its axis.

Rick tries not to think about it, about any of it, turning his thoughts to the road ahead of them. “Any clue where we are?” The scenery is unfamiliar and dread settles heavily in Rick’s stomach. He stumbles slightly and Negan reaches out, clasping Rick’s elbow in support.

The alphas let them go as promised, after taking what they wanted as _‘repayment’._ But where they had dropped them off, Rick can’t begin to know

“I haven’t a fucking clue, Rick. I’m as clueless as a virgin on their wedding night.” Negan’s lips thin as if thinking better of his words, tearing his hand away and rubbing at his bruised face; bruises Rick had caused him. “My guess is as fucking good as yours, but fucking hell, the alphas either drugged us or knocked us unconscious for a hell of a long time, driving us to the middle of shit-show nowhere.”

“Alexandria, The Sanctuary, Hilltop?” Rick asks, panic growing, winding through his chest like vines, pulling the breath from his lungs.

“Could be fucking states away, could be miles? I have no fucking clue how long we were unconscious but my head hurts like I downed warehouse full of booze.”

“Our people. Your people. Everyone could be dead—” Rick starts, nails digging deeply into his palms, pained crescent moons blooming on his skin. They both started a war, both sought to end it, and neither were there to carry out said end. Their people most likely assumed them dead, and mostly likely their people were dead too. Rick swears, hot tears burning his cheeks and wetting his beard. Guilt consumes him whole. It’s hopeless, so fucking hopeless. He failed them all. He failed himself.

“Rick—” Negan’s voice cuts through him and he meets his eyes, unreadable - void of emotion - but his jaw sits stern and hard. He vaguely wonders if Negan will end it now, beat his head into the ground, but his thoughts are cut short. There’s a noise at the side of the road, a walker crunching a dry stick as it emerges from the woods, face grotesque and skin rotten and dripping, like melted candle wax. “If you want to live any longer, Rick, we’ve got to shelter our asses.”

They’re weaponless, vulnerable, and Negan moves quickly, hefting Rick’s arm over his shoulder to move them faster, the walker slowly on their trail. Questioning and loathing himself, Rick wonders why he’s allowing Negan to support him again and again, as he leans against his shoulder, limping along his side. But he doesn’t have a choice. If he wants to live, wants to survive, Negan is his life line as much as he despises the thought.

When all this is over, when he reaches whatever’s left of the safe zone, he’ll end Negan. But for now, his weight rests again Negan’s broad, solid chest, and together they head down an unknown road, a walker screeching on their trail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU AGAIN, to milarca for being my lovely, kind and patient beta. This fic would be a mess without you, dear. You make my word vomit readable.


	3. weakness

Negan bashes the walker’s head with a rock, the putrid scent of its rotten flesh turning his stomach, but he beats the fucker to double death and watches its brain splatter across the pavement. He wishes he had the chance to turn such violence against those sick fucking alphas. Rick reeks of them, but Negan isn’t able to pick up their scent on the road, and all hopes of tracking them are lost. He’s breathing heavily, raggedly, and rapidly when he’s done with the job, slicked back hair sweaty and stuck to his forehead, his face aching where Rick had landed more than a few punches.

A part of him knows he deserved Rick’s outraged, for a lot of things. Shit he had to do to keep people safe, but Rick lost people before this—lost Carl. Rick lost a lot of things last night and Negan was willing to be an outlet, let Rick beat the ever-loving shit out of him if it was cathartic for the omega. He deserved Rick’s rage because he should have been able to shut down the other alphas as soon as they turned their greedy stares on to Rick’s chained up form. Hell, he supports omega rights, but call him medieval in the sense that he thought, as an alpha, he should be keeping the omega safe.

 He’s weak, and Negan hates being weak.

He hates how one night made him weak for Rick. He’s ready to call this fucking war off to give Rick a break, ready to give his people another chance, and cut their offerings down to one third if it meant some sort of relief for Rick. If it’s some way to apologize to make up for the shit Rick suffered—shit, what he could’ve stopped, could’ve prevented. His guilt is all consuming. But he wasn’t there to stop the war, and neither was Rick. For all he knew, neither would have a home to return to when and if they _ever_ returned.

Rick steadies himself against a tree, hands gripping at the bark like it’s his lifeline, keeping him grounded in more ways than one. When Negan returns to his side, Rick’s eyes are far off, dazed and distant as he itches at the junction of his neck and shoulder, the place he’d been marked repeatedly. Negan knew that shit hurt, could leave an omega feverish and dehydrated. The last thing he needs is a feverish Rick dying on him; this world is easier to face in numbers, and frankly, Negan doesn’t want to face this shit alone—doesn’t think he could live with the guilt of Rick dying over this.

Rick eyes him warily as if waiting to get hit. They have miles to fucking go, they could fly to the fucking moon and back, and still it wouldn’t be far enough, or long enough for him to gain Rick’s trust. If Rick _ever_ trusted him.

“You ready?” Negan asks, trying to hold back his euphemisms around Rick now, afraid he’ll push him over the edge, harm him in ways he truly doesn’t want to harm him. Hell, he catches himself almost saying, _‘Getting pretty sick of pulling my pud here, led me a hand and lets get this shit show on the road.’_

Rick offers him a small, “Yeah,” willingly looping an arm around Negan’s shoulder. At least the stubborn fucker is accepting support now.

The trees pass them in a blur, _time_ passes in a blur, and Negan forces his mind to remain steady, forces his eyes on the road, the winding path ahead. He forces his mind off Rick, grinding his teeth when he thinks of his eyes, a bright blue sea of fear and terror as the alphas descended on him. Rick’s cries reverberate, an unwanted song, an uncatchy hook repeating over and over again in his mind, driving him mad. An ear worm he wishes would stop torturing him, one he could dig from his skull with a sharp pointed knife.

The sun sets over the trees, sky orange and foreboding. If they didn’t find shelter soon, they wouldn’t make it through the night, and judging by Rick’s labored breathing, if he didn’t rest soon, _he_ wouldn’t make it through the night. Negan doesn’t believe in God, doesn’t now, but he believes in luck. Luck was a fine fucking lady, full hips and a pert breast, and she never let Negan down, was always on his side. Just as they round the corner, a car sits nestled in a ditch, rusted and overgrown with brush and vines. It isn’t ideal but it’ll house them for the night, and that’s enough. Lady Luck welcomes him with open arms again, and he’s so damn grateful he’d eat her pussy in a heartbeat.

His stomach turns at the thought, though, fuck. Even his own inner innuendos don’t feel right, not after what he saw, and even the thought of eventually jacking it and getting hard left a bitter taste in his mouth. That shit didn’t sit with him; he’d always been a sexual creature, but after what he witnessed, he wondered if his dick would ever work again. He despised his mind for even taking that root of thought as Rick breathed heavily against his shoulder.

It must have been relief, or perhaps exhaustion, but as the car comes into sight, Rick’s legs give out, sending them both crashing to the pavement. Negan hisses in discomfort as his ass hits the ground, and Rick shakes like the earth is quaking, rears back in fear as Negan slowly reaches out to feel his forehead. He’s burning up, hotter than a model in a bikini— _shit, don’t go there._ Whether it be from the chill of Negan’s hand, the bodily contact, or the promise of rest, Rick’s body gives one small convulsion, eyes rolling back in his head.

Frantically, Negan reaches out, catching Rick before his head whacks against the pavement. He’s relieved to see Rick’s chest rise and fall. Relieved the tough fucker is still breathing. Negan nearly laughs at the irony of it; he never would’ve thought he’d be thankful for Rick’s life, for his breathing and heartbeat. Slow, as not to startle or wake him, Negan lifts Rick with a grunt, carrying him towards the car.

…

The car is unlocked, thankfully, when Negan reaches it, pulling away the overgrowth and vines with bare hands. Rick lays settled in the grass, eyes still closed, an occasional whimper leaving his lips as he twitches before falling deadly silent. The back door creaks loudly as Negan opens it, stale air wafting across his face, and he coughs at the dryness of it. Stale, hot air, dark room, hungry alphas, Rick’s pained cry. He loses himself in it for a moment, clenching his fists as he forces his mind back to the present. _Don’t think about that shit, don’t fucking think about it._

As Negan lifts Rick again, the omega moans softly as he’s maneuvered into the car, laid across the back seat. It’s a tight fit, but he carefully tucks Rick’s knees against his chest. Visibly filches when Rick does with pain in his sleep.

Running a tired hand over his own bruises, Negan stands, determined to keep his wandering fucking betrayer of a mind busy. He pops the car’s trunk, inspecting it for anything useful, furious when it turns up a dead end. Only antifreeze, a clothes hanger, and an empty milk carton. No water bottles, no food, no extra clothes. No weapons either, of course. It was going to be a tough night.

Kneeling, he brushes dirt and dust off the license plate, eager to find how far from home they are. Dirt cakes under his fingernails, uncomfortable and itchy as he wipes his hands on his boxers.

West Virginia. One state over.

“Country roads fucking take me home,” Negan whistles.

As the sky paints itself purple and black, Negan settles himself in the front seat ready for a long night. He won’t  - _can’t_ sleep. He doesn’t want to, is afraid of what he’d see once his eyelids close.

…

Unaware of the time, Negan has no idea how many minutes or hours pass before he hears Rick gasp in the back seat. Then there’s the sound of fabric rustling as he struggles to sit up, breathing sharply. Negan turns to face him, spine popping from being stationary for too long. Rick’s eyes are wild and lost, adjusting to the darkness as they finally settle on Negan, some form of relief overtaking him as he meets Negan’s eyes.

A minute of silence passes between them as they maintain eye contact. Negan doesn’t breathe, doesn’t think his heart gives a fucking beat, either. Rick’s pleas and cries ring in the back of his mind, haunting him. Rick’s eyes search his for something, _anything_ , to hold onto. Maybe reassurance, or comfort. Negan isn’t sure he has any to offer; he’s tired, weary, and can’t get the image of Rick chained to the bed, vulnerable and open, out of his mind. He isn’t sure he’ll fucking be okay after this, if either of them ever will be.

“How are you feeling?” _Dumb question, worst fuckety fucked up question._

“Thirsty,” Rick answers, licking his dry lips a few times. He still eyes Negan as if he’s ready to pounce, but there’s something else there, something deeply pondering, filled with confusion as if Negan’s some hell of an algebra problem he’s trying to solve. Good thing Negan never fucking taught algebra; he hated math.

“I’ll search for something to wet your fucking whistle in the morning.”

Rick prickles, looking away, at the dusty dirty car window, his lips a thin line in the windows reflection. “You will?”

“Big fucking yes, Rick. I’m not exactly fucking reassured about your ability to stay conscious and walk.” Negan’s voice echoes low through the small space of the car.

Jaw clenching, Rick still doesn’t turn to face him. “I’m not a damsel in distress, Negan. I don’t need you on my tail protecting me. I’ve taken care of myself for years. I don’t need it now, least of all from _you_.”

Negan lets out a small sigh, reminds himself Rick had played top dog for years and although when they’d first met Negan’d tried to _shut that shit down_ , he allows Rick to cling to it in this moment. Knows that if it offers Rick some small sense of comfort, he owes him the ability to keep it.

It’s the fucking alpha part of him, he tells himself, yearning to shelter and protect Rick now that he knows the truth. Fuck, he’d read of alphas going feral to protect omegas, ripping apart an opponent alpha limb-from-limb. Rick’s omega nature shouldn’t change anything between them - what happened shouldn’t change anything between them - but it had changed Negan’s whole world. He despises violence against omegas, hardly saw it necessary. He isn’t fucking weak, isn’t losing his balls, but he owes Rick protection, he owes Rick safety because he couldn’t protect him from those fucking monsters.

Taking a small calming breath to steady his nerves and collect his thoughts, Negan speaks. “I’m well fucking aware of that, Rick. But take pity on me. It’d sure as hell ease my mind knowing you were getting some fucking rest.”

Rick bares his teeth, a low growl erupting in his throat, “I’m supposed to lay back and surrender, swallow my pride so you can have yours?”

This mother fucking shit was testing his patience, he really had a lot of balls for someone lacking them. Negan pinches the bridge of his nose, seeing red. “Humor me, Rick.”

Rick scoffs, arms crossed over his chest defensively, creating a wall between them, “I’ve humored alphas like you my entire life, listened to their snide remarks about omegas, how they were less than human when I was hiding as one under their noses. I don’t need _you_ , I don’t need _shit_ from alphas like you.”

“Alphas like _me_ , Rick?” Negan hisses, vein pulsing in his temple. He’s losing his grip on his temper, and he tries to rein it in but feels himself losing the damned ropes. Rick’s hurt, Rick’s lashing out, he tries to remind himself. It’s nothing personal. “And what fucking type of alpha am I, _Rick_?”

Rick squares his shoulders, wincing as he straightens his body but doing it nonetheless, giving no signs of backing down. “I know alphas like you, and arrested them when I worked as deputy. Had to drive with them in the back seat of my car when they stank with an innocent omega’s blood, knowing that if they knew the truth about me, they’d stop at nothing to harm me too. Alphas like you get off on our pain, you get off on other people’s pain.”

“Rick, your fucking sticking your toe in some fucking boiling water right now,” Negan growls, fury mounting, threatening to consume him as it consumed Rick, he clung to any refuge of patience left. Gripping the plush car seat beneath him until his knuckles ached. Because maybe there was some horrifying truth to Rick’s words, maybe he enjoyed bashing in the skulls of Rick’s friends a little too much.

“What, are you going to beat me to death? Like you did Glenn and Abraham? Beat me with your fists until I sink into submission like you forced me into submission that night in the RV? I won’t cower under you, won’t _beg_ another alpha for my life again. Because shit like that only fuels alphas further. Bet that shit fueled you further. Bet you went back to the Sanctuary after you murdered them, after you belittled me and pulled one off. And last night when those alphas forced me, I bet it took all your energy not to ask to join them—”

The world blurs around him, his throat tightening and tongue drying as he reaches for the door handle, swinging it open. The cool night air stinging his face as he stumbles out.

“What a fucking shit shocker you are, Rick! What a fucking _joy_ to be around!” Negan hisses, leaning down to pop the trunk, feeling Rick’s eyes burning his skin. He turns to face Rick, spitting as he speaks in anger, fully blinded by it, too lost to consider Rick’s pain. “If I wanted you fucking dead, if I wanted to beat you and _rape_ you until there was nothing left, I’d have fucking _done it_ already.”

The words cut into Rick like a knife, and Negan wants them to, watches with some sort of sick satisfaction as Rick flinches away from him, eyes wide with terror. Negan’s stomach drops in horror when he realizes that he’s only further proving Rick’s point. There are a lot of monster in this fucked up world, dead and living, and he’s fucking one of them.

It takes all of Negan’s strength and restraint not to slam the car door and trunk. His fingers sweating and shaking with disgust, the empty milk carton almost slips from his grasp. Like a coward, he darts from the car and into the woods. He doesn’t dare look back.

…

Lady Luck loves him even if he doesn’t deserve her, because after wandering the dully moonlit woods for what seems like fucking _hours,_ and only encountering two walkers, he comes across a small stream. He checks upflow to make sure it’s not contaminated by rotten alive-again corpses before rinsing out the carton. He watches the cool water fill it to the brim and nearly drinks the whole thing himself before refilling it again.

He’s weak. So fucking weak. He’d dealt with Rick’s physical punches like a champ, but when it came to the verbal ones, he’d lost his damn temper. Proved himself no better than the alphas who chained Rick up and used him like he was fuckable trash. He lashed out, verbally assaulted him, verbally cut into him, and pulled out his guts. A stronger alpha would’ve taken Rick’s hits, let them roll off their shoulders. Rick needs someone to hurt, to unleash his hatred on, and Negan should’ve allowed it, shouldn’t have brought his own feeling into it.

Rick went through hell and Negan merely witnessed it, the horror of it, and yet it’s still stuck to the inside of his ribs like thorns, sharp and painful when he takes a full breath. He can’t even begin to imagine, to _feel_ the agony Rick carries, how weighty and suffocating it must be.

Fuck, if Lucille could see him now. If she knew the shit he did to survive, if she knew the shit he said to Rick, she’d leave him and he’d deserve it. She put up with a lot of shit while she was alive, his infidelity and vulgarity... and he loved her for it, worshipped her for it, and wished he had sooner.

Burying his face and shame in his hands, the water Negan chugged threatens to resurface.

He hears the squeak of the mattress, the clank of the chains, Rick’s pleas, Rick’s _cries_ , the alphas’ moans as they came. He smells them; the arousal, the blood, the musk of their cum. He tastes the bitter stale air, how it burned dryly at the back of his throat. He sees Rick’s eyes, baby blue, full of terror and pain, more fearful than when he had first met Negan, and just as fearful and wide when Negan’d lost his temper tonight.

The contents of his stomach leave him in a quick heave, the force of it burning his eyes, splattering on his knees and feet. Tears sting his eyes, sending a cold shiver down his spine, and a sob wrenches through him, sending him to his knees. His fingers dig deep into the dirt for support, the scent of fresh earth making his stomach turn. He’d left Rick in the car, with no weapon, and no promise of returning, stinking of ripe, frightened omega. Like a plump peach ready for the picking. Ready for any walker or alpha that wanted to devour him whole.

He’s a monster at his core, and a weak one at that. Sick and broken, he buries his face against his knees and breathes, “Lucille, please forgive me.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bless milarca's soul for betaing again!!! you make my mess not a mess


	4. disassociation

Shock courses through Rick, hastening his breath as he sees Negan emerge from the forest. The morning sun filters through the trees, soft and white, kissing Negan’s back like a halo, as if Negan could be remotely angelic—remotely heavenly. Rick knew him as the devil himself... or maybe he doesn’t. He’s questioned a lot of things in the past few hours; Negan’s pants, his scarf, his eruption last night. Rick deserved Negan’s sharp bite back; he’d  pushed him. Had wanted to push him. He wanted Negan to hurt as much as he did. After their squabble, their fight—whatever the hell it was—Rick didn’t expect to see him again.

Negan's return surprises him. The alpha didn’t abandon him in the back of a rusted-out car—Rick’s disgusted that he would even consider himself abandoned. Rick’s own lack of movement surprises him, as he sat in the car and waited. Waited for Negan to return, chewing at his nails as the minutes passed and the sky brightened without sight of him. He was never one to wait—what’s happening to him?

Terror still seeps deep into his bones, his marrow, and he’s hesitant to be alone—doesn’t think he can bear it. Safety in numbers, he tells himself—safety in Negan. He’s horrified when he realizes the direction of his thoughts, and scrambles from the back seat of the car, legs cramped and sore as he stands on hesitant feet. Limbs still weak and shaky as he makes his way to Negan, he nearly loses his footing a few times.

“Found some water,” Negan says, handing the milk carton to Rick, and Rick catches sight of dirt embedded deep in Negan’s fingernails as their hands brush. Rick wonders what Negan had done, how far he traveled, and if it was far enough to ease his anger.

The tension between them is palatable, an awkward weight pressing profoundly on Rick’s shoulders. There’s no rage in Negan’s eyes, no annoyance, and his expression is distant—perhaps even mournful. It’s unbearable. Rick would rather face Negan’s anger or attempts at kindness than whatever the hell this is. Negan looks guilty, and Rick hadn’t though the man capable of guilt.

“Thank you,” Rick says, attempting to ease what passed between them.

“No fucking problem,” Negan groans tiredly, as if it _was_ a big problem. As if Rick was a kicked dog and Negan had done the kicking. “Can’t guarantee it won’t make you puke or give ya’ the shits though.”

“You’ve got a way with words,” Rick drawls, popping open the carton and taking a swig. The cool water slides like silk down his throat, easing the dryness of his tongue and lips. It settles heavily in his empty stomach, but he sloshes down the rest of the bottle despite it, gasping for breath when he’s finished.

“Where’s the water from?” he asks, wishing he’d saved some to wash up with, as his inner thighs are still smeared with dried cum and blood. He wanted nothing more than a warm shower. Hot water surging over him as he scrubbed himself clean and pink—raw—until he could erase last night, any trace of it from his body. A sick part of him yearns to peel his skin back, peel it away until there’s nothing left, so their marks disappeared, and their fingerprint-shaped bruises vanished.

Negan is unusually silent, slow in his pace to answer, rubbing vaguely at the bruises on his face. “A stream a little way into the woods.”

“Take me,” Rick says, handing the carton back to him. “I want to wash up.”

“Rick—” Negan starts, shoulder squared ready to argue, or perhaps braced against Rick’s coming argument. But his squared shoulders seem false, tired, and ready to drop at any moment, as if he was the one who couldn’t bear this any longer.

“ _No_ ,” Rick hisses, hands firmly on his hips, “I’m not doing what I did last night. I’m not fighting, and I’m not pointing fingers to prove my point. We’re stuck with each other, Negan. We’re fucking stuck.”

“Last fucking night, Rick—that shit was my fault. Shit, I shouldn’t have lost my temper with you.” Negan’s voice is low, barely audible, over the rush of heavy wind, and the dry leaves rustling, twisting in the tall trees. Although his voice hardly carries, what Rick can hear carries shame, and not just a moment a shame—but a life of it.

“We pushed each other last night,” Rick admits, taking pity on him, his voice cracking. He’s overwhelmed—exhausted. “I don’t want to push anymore. I’m tired, Negan. I want to wash the last day away—I want to wash _them_ away.”

Empathy—sympathy.Before, this wasn’t something he would’ve ever expected from Negan, least of all a verbal apology. He loathed that to gain it, Negan had to see him shattered, picked apart, and glued back together, all in the wrong order. Perhaps it’s the least surprising thing Rick’s realized within the last few hours—Negan needed to see someone completely dehumanized before he truly saw them as human.

“I’ll make you a deal, Rick,” Negan whistles, approaching him with his hand held out. “A deal so fucking great you won’t be able to say no.”

“And what if I do say no?” Rick pales, stiffening. A deal with Negan is an unappetizing thing, and his stomach rolls at the thought.

“Then that’s your choice. You have a choice, Rick. You always do.”

Negan’s acting like he’s givingRick a choice, as if he ever had. As if Rick had a choice the night Negan swung Lucille. As if Rick has a choice the night with the alphas. Rick grinds his teeth, eyes pinched shut and fist clenched tight enough to turn coal into diamonds. His gag reflex threatens to kick in, forcing himself to swallow it down, not wanting to lose what precious water they had. He speaks, “What’s your deal?”

“I’ll take you to the stream, but you’ve got to let me carry your there, Rick. We both know you’re on weak footing and its downhill through tough terrain. Can’t have you fucking spraining an ankle or breaking a leg. We sure a shit won’t get anywhere that way.”

The worst part of it is, is that Rick knows Negan’s right. His legs won’t carry him over roots and slippery leaves; it hurt to walk on solid pavement. Reluctantly, he holds out his arms to Negan, ignoring his pride. “Don’t think this means I trust you.”

Negan grins like a madman. “Wouldn’t count on it, Rick.”

…

Bundled up in Negan’s arms as the alpha cuts through the woods is an odd feeling. It shouldn’t feel safe for many reasons, but Rick finds it weirdly comforting despite it all. Negan is warm, his body radiating heat, a fiery lick of flames against Rick’s exposed skin. His well-worn cotton shirt is soft against Rick’s cheek as it rests against Negan’s broad chest. Relying on an alpha had never been in his book, not even with Carl’s father. He trusted Carl’s father to keep his secret, but he’d be damned if he’d allowed the man to vow protection over him—to own him.

They reached the stream without incident, without walkers or stumbles. Negan gently settles Rick to the forest floor, and to Rick’s fury he finds himself reluctant to leave Negan’s arms.

“I smell some rotten-ass shit—walkers probably on its way, I’d be quick if I were you.” Negan warns, not that Rick wants to spend the day in freezing water.

Slowly, the process of being naked again a frightening one, Rick begins to undress, stripping Negan’s pants from his sore legs. The waist of them, tight, leave painful red indents on his skin. He runs a thumb over the ridges in attempt to distract himself from _everything_. Trying to remain distant, disconnected from the situation, he folds Negan’s pants and scarf in a careful pile, letting them rest on a small rock besides the stream.

He casts one hesitant gaze in Negan’s direction, finding the alpha’s eyes averted, his jaw strongly set as if he can’t bear to lay eyes on him. Good. For that Rick’s glad. Doesn’t think he could bear to lay eyes on himself, either. With clenched teeth, he enters the stream, crystal clear, water-rounded stones tickling the soles of his feet.

Leaning down, Rick crouches waist-deep in the water, shivering and spasming as he does. It’s freezing, like chilled ice cubes caressing his skin. He ignores it, setting out to finish his tasks. And that’s all it is, he tells himself—a task—wanting to remain as far away from it as possible. It’s like watching someone in a movie, as he goes about running a hand at his inner thighs, dried blood and cum swirled away by the rushing liquid. It’s anyone but himself, as he runs wary fingers between his legs, wincing at the tenderness.

The alphas, pressing into him, forcing him open. He shakes his head, wet hair sending droplets flying to the water’s surface. This isn’t happening. He isn’t going there, would never go there again. It isn’t real, it’d never be real—he can’t allow it to be. Just like Carl’s death, he’ll push it far into the recesses of his mind, box it away behind lock and key to never be dealt with. Dissociation is easier than facing the sharp brutal knife of reality.

Sweet Carl, dying to help someone in need. Carl’s starkly sick skin, pale and fading, clear in his mind. The ring of gunfire as Carl ends his own life so Rick wouldn’t have to. Always thinking of others, Carl. Carl was too good for this world; the world didn’t deserve him. The good always died young, they say, and Carl’s death only further proved that. This world stole everything good, tainted it and let it rot away. The alphas that assaulted him only further proved it.

The water chills him, not only physically, but emotionally—mentally. The cold settling into his bones is a welcomed one. Pinching his eyes shut until they ache, Rick repeats to himself, _‘Don’t think about it. Don’t think about. Don’t think about it.’_

The lock and key won’t hold, the box he tries desperately to keep everything in bursts open, threatening to devour him whole. Like angry teeth, digging into his skin, pulling him apart piece by piece. Like the alphas’ teeth, marking him—claiming him. Their hands over his skin, their bodies over him, in him. His breath becomes a fickle thing, and he’s unsure if he even draws in a lungfull. It reminds himself of the last breath he watched Carl take.

He tries to remember Carl’s last words but the world bleeds black and his minds swarms, a flock of the alphas’ moans filling the cavern of his skull. Carl’s last words... he clings to the thought of them out of desperation. Carl’s letter, he’d never read it. Might not ever get too—might not ever get to know his child’s last words to him. The irony of it—he knew Carl’s last words to Negan, knew his son wanted peace between them. Maybe Carl placed the thought of peace into the universe because although Negan and he were on shaky, not even remotely peaceful grounds, there was an unspoken vow between them to keep each other alive for their own sakes.

Guilt sweeps over him, crushingly. A small part of him, a part that threatened to consume and bloom within him, knew he owed Carl the truth. He’d struggled with it for years, the moment never felt right, to sit Carl down and voice it. Even on Carl’s deathbed he hadn’t the nerve, the will, to speak about Carl’s father, how in love he’d been with him before the dead started walking. Carl would never know how in awe Rick was when Carl’s first cry entered the world, how proud and nervous Rick was the first time Carl nursed at his chest.

Vaguely through the haze of his pain he registers Negan calling to him, frantic and winded. Water splashes at his side as Negan darts in next to him, the screech of a walker all too close. He can’t move. His body won’t let him. Walker blood, rank and putrid, splatters his face, as a loud thump sounds to his right and Negan proceeds to beat the dead’s head in with a large branch. Rick watches through a filter, eyes glazed and dazed.

When it’s over, blood stains the water red, Negan’s shirt soaked to him with it like a second skin. Negan’s chest rises and falls rapidly with effort, his eyes dark with concern as he turns his attention to Rick.

“Did that fucker bite you?”

Rick itches at his throat, the alphas’ bites pulsing as they healed and scared. “No,” he says, although he almost wishes it had, he’s so frustrated by Negan’s worry over him.

He shakes his head furiously. He has to live, has to see his family again so Judith won’t lose someone else. He wants to see her grow, beat this world. He has to live so he can end Negan, end this war—if there’s anything left to end.

Relief flashes over Negan’s face and Rick despises it. Nothing’s changed between them. It shouldn’t—it can’t. Trudging out of the water, feeling filthier than when he had entered, Rick dresses. The clothes are sticky and scratchy against his damp skin, irritating and chaffing as he slides his legs into Negan’s pants.

“You ready?” Negan asks, hands held out, waiting to lift Rick and carry him back, to where he wasn’t sure—they have nowhere. Reluctantly, Rick accepts, letting out a gasp as he’s lifted into Negan’s arms like he’s a small child.

They’re in this hell together—they don’t have any other choice.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to milarca again for beta'ing. sorry about this chapter, i wasn't overly happy with it. it felt off and boring to me frankly.
> 
> chapter 5 maybe take a while to be up, there is some personal things in my life going on atm
> 
> thank you for reading


	5. curiosity

Eating worms and squirrels on the road isn’t something Negan thought he’d ever resort to again, but he sure as hell isn’t dying and he’ll do anything to keep the two of them alive. Rick, for the most part, accepted Negan’s offered food without complaint, though he did have a constant frown plastered on his face as he did so. Negan yearns for conversation, as the silence between them is enough to make him want to gouge his own eyes out. They’d been on the road for two nights since the night with the alphas, and Negan cracks his knuckles at the thought of them.

The sound of it draws Rick’s attention, and for the first time in twenty-four hours, there are words between them. “You should sleep,” Rick says, voice slicing through the darkness.

Negan never thought he’d be glad to hear Rick’s voice, but it’s oddly cathartic. Yet it is startling in the otherwise stillness and Negan turns from his position in the front seat of the car to look at Rick curled up in the back. They hadn’t made it much further than the rusty vehicle, Negan wanting to give Rick a chance to recuperate, much to Rick’s reluctant frustration. They’d spent the last few days collecting sticks, sharpening them on the pavement until their ends were pointed like spears. It worked well enough to end walkers and Negan’s certain it would end humans if needed, but he hasn’t caught any scent of approaching alphas or betas.

Negan lifts his arms, the stretch a pleasant feeling, however, the thought of sleep is an unpleasant notion. Fear is something Negan has pushed far inside himself, but the thought of closing his eyes, reliving that night again and again, like a slow-motion movie... he couldn’t bear it. He fears it, loathes admitting he’s someone who fears at all.

“You need it more than I do,” Negan groans, physically - emotionally - exhausted. The allure of sleep, running tender fingers through his hair, his eyes heavy with it...

Haunted, Rick faces his own demons in his sleep, tossing and turning, gasps of, _‘No’_ and _‘Please’_ leaving his pinched lips. Sometimes he just called for Carl, or someone whose name Negan doesn’t recognize. Rick wakes often drenched in sweat, eyes wide, with soft purple rings around them as if he hadn’t slept at all. It isn’t a restful sleep in the least bit. It’s the sort of sleep Negan yearns to avoid.

“Bullshit,” Rick calls from the backseat, “You haven’t slept in days, Negan.”

Negan pinches his lips thin. “I’m fucking fine.” He doesn’t want to argue, doesn’t have the energy.

“You’re going to start _seeing things_ soon,” Rick adds, as if he doesn’t see things when he sleeps. They both know he does.

It’s a fine fucking line avoiding sleep and remaining painfully awake, and Negan knows either way he’d be tormented. With a reluctant sigh, he surrenders to Rick—something he’d never thought he’d do. But a lot of nevers are coming true lately. “You get your fucking way, Rick. You sure as hell do, but I’m not breaking my damn back falling asleep in the front seat.”

“Alright.” Rick shifts in the back, surprising Negan when he climbs over the center console, wiggling his way into the passenger seat, his body soft as it brushes against Negan’s legs. Negan inhales sharply at Rick’s warmth and scent. His suppressants and the artificial scent had fully worn off, and Rick’s aroma filled the car. As their skin brushed, it overwhelmed Negan’s senses like a drug, intoxicating and sweet, his mouth watering for it.

Shit. Negan loathes his perverse self and the road his mind’s taking. He shakes his head, shakes out his thoughts with great fury, and climbs into the back seat. Though Rick’s scent is inescapable, as he lays across the back - long legs scrunched up to fit - his sinuses fill with its sweet all-encompassing peachiness.

Sleep reaches for him, and he yearns to turn and run, terrified of what it offers. But exhaustion is something he can no longer fight, and he falls into its arms an unwilling captive.

…

He dreams of Rick. Rick’s bright fear-filled eyes on the night he met Lucille, and, those eyes, despite the terror they faced—the fear Negan placed in them—they held a need to fight—resilience. Negan hears his own voice, resonating through his mind, telling Rick he owned him—that Rick belonged to him. Within the darkness of his dream, he transforms, into an alpha from that infamous night, and he’s over Rick, in Rick. Rick’s tears only fueling the alpha—him—further.

Waking feels like a blessing, but, horrified and disgusted, Negan tastes bitter bile, sweat soaking through his shirt, and he’s shivering and freezing because of it. He sits, stomach rolling and sloshing, and yearns to beat the shit out of something—anything—himself.

Reluctantly, he casts an eye in Rick’s direction, but the omega isn’t paying him not even the slightest attention. Thank fucking Jesus for that. Rick stares off in the distance, whether at the morning fog rolling eerily over the road, or lost in his own horrors, Negan doesn’t know—doesn’t want to know. He’s relieved Rick is distracted; doesn’t think he could bear Rick’s attention. Terrified—so fucking disgusted by his feelings that he’d lose himself. He doesn’t want Rick caught in the crossfire—not again.

…

Negan is _almost_ sentimental leaving the comforts of their rusted-out car. It had provided them with housing and safety for a few nights and offered Rick a place to rest up and heal. Gathering up their sharpened sticks and the milk carton, Negan cocks his head in Rick’s general direction. “You sure you’re ready to head out?” he asks, because after last night, after his dream, Negan isn’t sure _he_ is.

“More than,” Rick sighs, stretching and yawning as he emerges from the car. He grabs a stick from Negan’s hand and walks with more confidence than he had even the day before. He’s healing slowly, but his steps are sure and his limp is lacking.

 “Are _you_ ready to get moving?” Rick asks, turning to Negan, eyebrow quirked. There’s a hint of annoyance in his voice, however, beneath it there’s a need for reassurance. A need to know they’re making the right move.  Negan doesn’t have a fucking clue, couldn’t begin to know, but they aren’t surviving in the confines of their small shitty metal car—he knows that deep down.

Everything—or at least at the beginning of everything—Negan did was to protect and help those around him. As the years passed, he knew his intentions had grown distorted, and the power he held devoured him ravenously. To put it simply, the power turned him into an asshole—the biggest fucking asshole. But, studying Rick now, as the omega eyes him with suspicion and something oddly reminiscent of reliance, Negan vows to never let his intentions grow perverse again. Despite Rick’s fury and denial for the need of help and protection, Negan _will_ continue to offer it, and keep Rick safe (if he could keep Rick safe from himself) until they both return to their respective homes—whatever remained of them.

“Let’s get the fucking fuck on the move, Rick,” Negan says with false confidence, and reluctantly Rick follows.

…

For the first time in days, Rick doesn’t lean on Negan for support, doesn’t wrap his arm around Negan’s shoulders so his weight rests on the alpha and their sides press together, warm and tight. It leaves Negan feeling fucking needy and useless, yearning for Rick’s reliance on him, Rick’s need for him. Disgust swells within his chest that he should hunger so desperately for Rick’s attentions and dependence, like a bitch in heat. The desire to give help and the desire to feel wanted—needed—leaves Negan with a dark sense of sickness and selfishness. He’s ashamed of his own neediness, his desire to be an alpha who provided safety and comfort to an omega in need. All of which he’d already fucking failed Rick and tried his hardest to make up for since _that_ dreaded night.

The scent of rotten flesh, thick and pungent, reaches his nose, and he waves a hand towards Rick in warning. Rick gives a nod of understanding and assurance as they carefully make their way down the road, wary of the oncoming dead.

The sound of a branch breaking sends both their heads whipping to the right, two walkers stumbling from the woods. The fuckers’ faces are grotesque and misshapen by decomposition as they stumble and screech in their general direction.

Negan makes move, his sharpened stick raised and posed to strike, but Rick is wily and quicker, more like the fucking road runner than the coyote, and beats him to it. The sharpened stick in Rick’s hand is a clever weapon as he turns it against the walking dead. Rapidly piercing the skull of the first one, Rick turns his attention to the second. There is a blackness—a blankness—to Rick’s features, something forbidden and unreadable that Negan wishes he could delve into and pull apart—to consume as if he were fucking starving—and he practically is.

There’s something poetic in the way Rick’s body moves as he poses his attacks, the line of his shoulders and arms pure art. Negan watches with some perverse satisfaction as Rick sinks the sharp edge of the spear to  the waker’s chest in a non-fatal blow, black sludgy blood sloshing in its wake.

It’s then that Negan reads the blankness of Rick’s face, registers the meaning behind it—Rick’s unhinged and barely restrained rage. Just as Negan had served as Rick’s punching bag before, this fucker was serving as Rick’s pincushion, as the spear pierces its body over and over again. A sharp needle, it’s fabric flesh. Negan watches it like a movie as Rick pours everything into the walking corpse, hot tears streaming down the omega’s face, blending and smearing with walker blood. Rick’s the hero of his own story—and Negan realizes that he wished, but failed at, being Rick’s—and Negan can only cheer him on.

When it’s finished, and Rick lands the fatal blow—well, second fatal blow if you count the first-time the fucker died—silence encapsulates the world around them, even the wind dying down as if to say, _‘It’s over. It’s ended. It’s done.’_

But Negan knows this shit ain’t ever over. Not for Rick, and not for him. As Rick tries to collect himself, his shoulders rising and falling with the strength of his breaths, his face is desperate as he turns towards Negan. It’s something that will haunt them both forever.

…

Eager to break the quiet as they walk down the road, headed to God only knows where—with no map and no useful road signs—Negan begins to speak, perhaps foolishly, but he can’t live with and bear the ghosts the silence carries any longer.

“You have someone back home, Rick?”

It’s an unwise line of questioning, Negan knows, and Rick shoots him daggers for it.

“I don’t have _wives_ if that’s what you’re asking,” he parries, and Negan catches a laugh building in his throat. It feels wrong to laugh, now—after everything. But he’s softened, reassured by Rick’s attitude.

“Do you have anyone, a lover, a wife—a husband?” Negan pushes, and Rick sighs.

“Why do you want to know?”

Well, it isn’t a flat-out refusal to answer, and Negan counts that as a fucking victory. Score one for Negan. Rick’s score: one—for his earlier rebuttal. “Well, to put it simply, I’m curious, Rick. And conversation sure makes the time pass quicker.”

“Curiosity killed the cat,” Rick spits.

Negan grins wildly, as if mad. “But satisfaction brought it back.” Two points to him and counting. “Now give me the satisfaction of an answer, dear, sweet, Rick.”   

Rick sighs, as if accepting defeat, or perhaps accepting, like Negan, that he can’t bear the silence any longer, offers an answer: “I do, have someone. Or at least... I did. I don’t think she’ll want me know.”

Negan whistles. “Did she know about...” He waves in Rick’s general direction. “You?”

“No. Michonne didn’t, we never got past kissing—or sharing a bed at night,” Rick says, as if the words pain him.

“That’s some first-grade level bullshit if I ever heard any.” Michonne, Negan thinks; the samurai wielding a badass sword to knock walkers down in quick slices. An alpha too—no wonder Rick was drawn to her; she _oozed_ strength and power. Rick instinctively knew she could keep him safe. “Damn, Rick, these people you care about, you sure seem to think they wouldn’t give a shit about you if they knew what you were? Or do you just loathe your own type so much you’re projecting your own fucking feeling onto them—Did you love her, Rick?”

Rick bristles, the next breath he takes hissing between his clenched teeth, “Why does it matter?”

“Answer the question,” Negan says sternly, eager for the truth, hungry and wanting. He’s surprised and fulfilled when Rick offers it in submission. Points for Negan: three.

“No, I didn’t, and it wasn’t fair to her. I cared about her, I trusted her to an extent. But I didn’t trust her to know the truth. I haven’t trusted anyone to know the truth since—”

Negan sucks in a breath, feeling the words like a hard fucking punch. “Since Carl’s father?”

The hard line of Rick’s jaw and his silence is the only answer Negan needs. Negan runs a careful hand through his hair, slicking it back into place. “Carl’s father... he still around?”

Rick pales, voice and eyes void of emotion as he speaks, and Negan waits with bated breath.

“No.”

“No? Is that all you’ve got?”

Negan can practically hear something snap in Rick, the gears of his mind breaking as the omega growls out, “No, he’s not. I killed him.”

“ _Jesus_ ,” Negan whistles. Looks like Carl wasn’t the only psychopath in the family. Points for Rick: infinite. “Well, Rick you win. Game point.”

Rick studies Negan as if he’d gone insane. Maybe they both had.

“Did you love him?” Negan asks.

“That’s personal,” Rick bites back, walking ahead of Negan with such speed that Negan has to sprint to keep up.

“Indulge me, Rick? Pamper the shit out of me. I’m curious and only your satisfaction can bring me back.”

“Do you love your wives?” Rick shoots, face red with rage.

“Low blow, Rick. A real dick puncher,” Negan laughs easily now, because really, it wasn’t. “I provide for them. I care for them. But it’s not love and they know it and I know it. But you? Carl’s dad? You don’t seem the type—” _to give it out for free,_ he almost says, but thinks better of it and himself for not saying it.

“I’m not the type,” Rick sighs, shoulder slumping, and he turns to Negan, exhausted and hesitant. “You want your answer? I’ll give it to you if you shut up. I _loved_ him. I loved him more than I ever loved another human being—until Ca—” Rick chokes, unable to finish his son’s name, and Negan takes pity on him, rest a heavy hand on his curved shoulder.

“I’m sorry.”

 Rick throws Negan’s hand away as if burned. “No, you’re _not_.”

Negan brushes off Rick’s words, ignores the way they sting. Rick had no reason to trust in his sincerity.

“Final question,” Negan says, because maybe his curiosity would kill him but at least he’d have satisfaction in death. “What was his name?”

Pain lances across Rick’s face, his eyes pinched shut against it. “Shane,” he says simply, and Negan recognizes it as the name Rick called out in his sleep. “His name was Shane.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof,,,,,next chapter is a flashback so hopefully you all enjoy it!! thanks again to milarca for betaing and tolerating me. i love you dear


	6. remembered

…

Rick remembered.

Shane was his first love—Rick isn’t sure when they crossed the line past friendship, past brotherhood, and into the realm of lovers. But it happened without thought. It happened without reason. Shane was the first to know the truth about him—besides his mother, besides his father. Shane and then Lori. Lori, his best friend. A truth he had long ago swallowed, kept hidden locked tightly deep within his chest in a nest of barbed wire.

Yet Shane found the truth without trying, with the tangle of their tongue and a few shots of whiskey, their bodies twined together on the ratty couch in their one-bedroom apartment, whispering and chortling about their future plan to attend police academy together. It wasn’t supposed to happen. It had never happened before, but Shane and he had never gotten this drunk, this close, this _physical_.

Shane’s calloused palms slid up Rick’s belly, hiking up his t-shirt to expose lean, tan skin, his lips soon following. Rick’s back curved in a perfect arch as a moan rolled off his lips. The barbed wire nestled deep within his chest slowly unwound, unfurled, a low warmth blooming in his lower stomach, shooting and sparking hotly to his fingertips. This wasn’t supposed to happen; the heat suppressants he took were supposed to prevent it, but medically, little was known about them. Not approved by the FDA or legal on the mass market, Rick could only guess if it was the closeness of an alpha or the alcohol that set off his oncoming heat off.

A heat he couldn’t fight off, as scalding talons grabbed hold of him, vicious in the strength of their grasp. The first heat he’d ever experienced, his family supplying him with heat suppressants as soon as he hit puberty. An omega son a shame to the family, little opportunities and rights left to them, no way of following the family line, his father’s mighty footsteps of wearing a sheriff’s hat and gun.

Determination set Rick forward to make his family—his father—proud. If he was born an omega in a world that valued them little, saw them as little more than child-bearers, not a soul would know of it. He hid his peachy omega scent behind the artificial musk of a beta, studied and strutted and talked as close to an alpha as he could. Metamorphosized into something—anything—that he wasn’t.

All his hard work, his years of fighting off _what_ and _who_ he was, crashed over him in a wall of fiery flames. A soft omega whimper of need left his lips as he ground down on Shane’s lap, a sudden wetness seeping between his thighs, as a sickeningly sweet scent oozed from his skin. There was no way of hiding it, no way of hiding himself.

“Rick, what the fuck?” Shane’s eyes shot open, his nostrils twitching as they caught up the scent emanating from Rick’s squirming form—Rick, unsure if he was squirming to get closer to Shane or further away. “Joe, put you up to this? You fuckin’ with me?”

Rick understood, knew why Shane doubted him, thought it was some sick joke. Omegas were sheltered by their families, homeschooled, did not enjoy unsupervised visit with alphas or betas, all of which Rick was not. Omegas were rare, highly sought after, their scent bottled and sold at sex shops for desperate alphas to get off to—for only one-sixth of the alpha population would ever get a chance to mate with an omega. Rick knew if he had had different parents he would’ve been auctioned off when he came of age, sold to the highest paying alpha bidder with a—hopefully—clean record.

“Not a joke. Not a joke,” Rick repeated like a mantra, his head swimming high, light like the clouds, losing focus as the heat took over. He sought out Shane’s lips and Shane’s lips filled with curses of confusion and frustration.

“You fucking _lied_ to me,” Shane groaned between kisses as Rick began to unbutton Shane’s shirt, buttons popping and fumbling as Rick’s shaking sweaty hands struggled with them.

“Had to, still gotta lie to everyone,” Rick hissed as Shane flipped them, the couch crying beneath the shared weight. “Can’t have anyone know the truth.”

Brows furrowed, Shane studied Rick, laid out like a sacrifice beneath him, brunette curls a halo around his flushed face. “You want me to keep this a secret? You trust me, too? You trust me even knowing we—including me—are in the soon-future supposed to uphold and enforce the law? A law that says all alphas must report omegas masking as betas.”

Tears, hot and thick, pricked the corner of Rick’s eyes. and his tongue, unable to form words settled between his teeth. He nodded his head, _‘Yes. Yes. Yes.’_ And when his tongue and brain formed words through the thick fog of heat he heard himself chant, “ _Need you. Need you to breed me. Breed me._ ”

And so Shane did.

His large square fingers made quick work of Rick’s jeans button and fly, pulling the pants off him in one quick swoop, leaving Rick’s legs bare and cold. He keened as Shane’s fingers slid over his skin, slid everywhere, under the hem of his boxer to explore Rick’s soft wet fold. Rick saw white, clenched his legs around Shane’s exploring hands as a scream threatened to tear free of his throat as a thick finger entered him. Shane carefully covered his mouth as bliss washed over him, his shout muffled by Shane’s calloused palm.

“Shhh, baby, come on. Can’t have the neighbors walking in on us,” Shane growled, feral and primal—all alpha, Rick’s toes curled with it. “Unless you want that? You want them to watch you come apart, baby?”

Too undone, Rick could only sob in response, rocked back against Shane’s fingers as he added another, thumbing lightly over Rick’s clit. Rick was mad with it, with need and want and hunger. Never felt desire so great in his life, hadn’t touched himself beyond a few experimental searches as a teen, too ashamed of his own body to know what pleasures it offered. And pleasure, it offered; his body sung with it, limbs weak and shaken by it. Shane’s fingers fucked him open, played with his clit as he licked a stripe up Rick’s throat and nibbled at his earlobe.

“Should mark you, slut. So everyone knows you’re mine,” Shane whispered, breath hot and wet against Rick’s ear. Rick’s stomach flipping at the feel and sound of it. “But you’d hate me in the morning for it, wouldn’t you?”

Rick sobbed, too lost in it to register Shane’s words. Only realized years later how different his life almost was, how close Shane’s teeth had hovered over the juncture of his neck and shoulder. He should’ve hated Shane for it, for even thinking it, but they were drunk and Rick’s heat high, and their thoughts a muddled jumbled mess of alcohol and lust.

“In me,” Rick whispered, hips canting, meeting the hard thrusts of Shane’s thick fingers.

“Can’t hear you, baby,” Shane purred, pumping those wonderful fingers of his in and out, and Rick’s world narrowed down to them, centered down to nothing but Shane’s digits and the pleasure blooming between his thighs. He saw white, a kaleidoscope of colors too, exploding before his eyes. He floated in space, among the stars, breathless and blinded. When he returned to earth, Shane was above him, fly unzipped, kneeling between Rick’s spread thighs as he pressed his cock into Rick’s wet entrance.

Rick remembers the pain of being breached for the first time, Shane’s cock thicker than his fingers. But, like a good omega (as if in any other moment he’d allow himself to think in such a way), he’d bit his lip and took it, too lost in his heat and the need to be breed to focus on something as small and simple as an uncomfortable soreness. With slow, careful strokes, Shane worked himself into Rick’s cunt until fully seated, breathing heavily, forehead resting against Rick’s as he pumped his hips steadily, trying to offer Rick time to adjust, yet too focused on his own pleasure now to stay still.

Rick remembered how beautiful Shane’s eyes looked, dark, with pupils blown wide with arousal. How delectable and forbidden Shane had tasted when Rick leaned up to capture his lips, breathe in his air and fill his lungs.

It didn’t take much longer for Shane to come as the rate of his thrust increased, the strength of them nearly sending Rick’s head slamming into the couch’s armrest with great force. With a grunt, he came, filling Rick’s greedy womb with his seed. Rick shivered at the warmth, a sense of fulfillment and peace like he’d never felt washing over him.

Vaguely, he remembered that Shane carried him to his twin bed on the left side of the room, tucked him in under his covers as if he were a child. Vaguely, he remembered Shane’s lips lingering on his forehead.

Rick’s memories of the night vary, and there are times that he wondered if he had heard Shane cry, sobs that wracked through his body like earthquakes as Shane sat on the couch, his eyes burning holes in the back of Rick’s skull.

…

Rick woke, sore and exhausted, the next morning, as if he hadn’t slept at all. He’s startled when he feels a hand brush through his curls. “Shane?”

“Yeah, baby, how you feeling?”

Rick sat up, with a groan, the muscles of his thighs protesting. He was grateful when he saw that Shane held out a cup of water and a bottle of ibuprofen for him. Rick speedily popped the pills, chugged the water as if he’d never had it in his life.

His heart was a heavy thing in his chest, racing and pounding furiously against the cage of his ribs. Shane knew his truth, and not only did know, he’d consumed it.

“Oh,” Rick said rather dumbly, tasting bile. Fear and dread washed over him in heavy waves. “Oh, god.”

“I won’t tell anyone, if that’s what your afraid of. I’ll keep you safe, baby. Your secret’s safe with me,” Shane assured, something akin to fear hidden deep within his dark eyes.

With a nod, Rick relented, loathe that Shane even offered up protection. Rick didn’t need it before and while he trusted Shane to keep his secret, protection was something far off and unwanted. The plague of omega reliance and need was a disease he’d greatly like to avoid. He’d allowed himself to be weakened last night, let the heat overtake him, when he stupidly drank too much. It had to be the alcohol, counteracting the heat suppressants’ major factor. Stomach twisting, he only hoped the birth control aspects of it held up.

“You mad at me, baby?” Shane asked, tucking a stray curl behind Rick’s red ear.

“No, I’m not,” Rick said weakly. Tears tightened his throat, the soft yellow light beating through their one dingy window burning his eyes. He yearned to crawl under the covers, hide from the day, from the world, but mostly himself. He didn’t regret what passed between them, and  perhaps on this morning a fearful part of him sat swallowing down his misgivings.

Knowing what he knows know, Rick cherishes that night and morning, the fact that Carl took root in him as Shane climbed into bed, nearly smothering Rick with his warmth. He’d laughed as Shane rolled on top of him, the small bed frame threatening to give out under Shane’s weight. Shane kissed him, his lips, his temple, his jaw, all while his fingers traced careful comforting pattern’s down Rick’s arms. He loved Shane, loved him more than he thought his heart was capable.

Rick remembered it fondly, like a lost polaroid photo, or overexposed film. The image blurred in his mind’s memory. But he’d always cherish Shane’s voice in his ear, the deep rumble of his laughter, sending ripples of joy through Rick’s chest, “Good, baby, because I hate when you’re cross with me.”

…

The bliss of domesticity Rick shared with Shane crashed down on them, his period void for the last few weeks.

“I’m late,” Rick breathed shakily as he left the bathroom, his palms sweaty and knees weak.

“For what?” Shane asked, looking up from his seat on the couch, mouth full of cereal. Rick would give anything to have Shane again as he was in that moment, careless, hair mussed and smile bright. No accusations headed in Rick’s direction. And Rick loathed the moment he broke it, watched stress and fear override Shane’s features.

A sob shook Rick’s frame. “I’m late,” he said, and then with more emphasis, “I’m **_late._** ”

…

Shane returned an hour later from the pharmacy, the omega pregnancy test seemed small in his large and looming hands, hands Rick remembered in and over his body. He swallowed hard, Shane’s fingers brushing his as he handed the test over, no warmth between their touch. He darts to the bathroom, unable to spare Shane a glance—doesn’t want to see the concern on his face, the worry. Still clinging to the image of him smiling on the couch, cereal stuck in his teeth.

…

Heart sunk, a few bitter heaves later, Rick emerged from the bathroom, pregnancy stick in hand. Shane’s eyes were wide when Rick finally met his, his tanned skin unusually pale. “What’s it say? We expecting?”

It’s then, and only then, that Rick felt the world collapse beneath his feet because of all emotions he expected from Shane; excitement was not one of them. Anger perhaps, blame, Rick could’ve dealt with, but the joy in Shane’s eyes, the brightness of his large grin was too much to swallow.

“Yeah,” Rick said flatly, voice low and emotionless, he should feel something, anything, but he can’t latch onto it, the world’s axis flipped upside down. His heart thudded loud in his ears and his tongue dry. “ _I’m_ expecting.”

He broke Shane that day, he knows, saw something deep in Shane’s eyes shatter as he framed Rick’s face in his large palms. And Rick could only cry, the world blurring in a splash of watercolors as his tears overflowed, hot and heavy, as they ran fat rivulets down his cheeks. Shane kissed him, Rick remembers and maybe it was the last time he ever truly _kissed_ him and meant it. Rick tasted his love and saccharine sorrow, his pleas and wants. He tasted the future they could’ve had—the one Rick bitterly did not want but Shane desired. He tasted spoiled milk and stale cereal, sweet, sour and sticky. He tasted the beginning of an end.

Shane kissed him as the clock in their kitchen rang noon and the world fell apart beneath Rick’s feet.

…

“You’re going to get rid of our child?” Shane asks as he pulls away, all sweetness gone, replaced with bitterness and sorrow.  

“No,” Rick said. The world didn’t give him a choice, abortion illegal for omegas and even if he had the choice he didn’t know if he had it in him.

“So, what, you gonna run off? Not let my baby know I’m their father?” Shane hissed between teeth, hurt raw and fresh on his face, and Rick felt the slap of it and knew he deserved it.

“We can’t be a happy family, Shane. It’s not in the books for us.”

“It could be,” Shane pled, “Rick, baby, it could be.” There is a quiet desperation about the alpha, a franticness Rick had never seen—hadn’t seen Shane this broken since his father died when he was just fifteen.  Rick wishes he could kiss it away, relent and let Shane have his way and maybe if he were a stronger omega he would’ve—maybe if he were a stronger omega Shane would still be alive today.

He clenched his fists and pinched his eyes shut, head spinning with it all. “I can’t, Shane. I can’t.”

Rick doesn’t dare open his eyes, black and red sparks floating beneath his lids. He hears the door slam and Shane’s rusted out pickup truck start up. The engine revs, the tire screeches, and he’s gone. Rick doesn’t see him for another twelve months.

…

Lori, his and Shane’s friend from high school, saved his life. Her eyes were gentle and her hair a soft cascade of chocolate down her back as she grasped Rick’s hand tightly between her thin long fingers. “No one has to know you carried the child, Rick. We can run off for nine months, get married, and everyone will think I bore the baby and you sowed the seed.”

Rick never truly thanked her enough for her sacrifice, for all she gave and gave _up_ for him.

…

They travelled to Lori’s parents’ vacation home in Florida, spent their days in quiet solitude as Rick layed in bed and Lori read to him, her voice soft and rhythmic as she gives voice to Scarlett O'Hara. The days were long and bleak, the weather hot and sticky, uncomfortable as Rick’s stomach began to swell. He thought of Shane often, filled with regret, regrets Rick convinces himself are foolish. He’ll have a better life for himself and his child after this, and, Shane, if he didn’t want to be in his child’s life when Rick returned, that was a choice of his own making. But Shane’s broken expression haunted him at night, and he fell asleep tasting their last sour kiss.

…

Rick went into labor at the start of spring, the midwife wiping his brow down with cold water. The buzz of the fans around him do little to dull the sweat sticking to his skin. Lori held his hand through the whole of it. Rick thought of Shane, his hands running comforting circles over Rick’s arm after their night together. He thought of his own father, the disappointment he’d face if he didn’t follow in his elders’ footsteps, if he gave in to the omega nature they’d taught him to fight his whole life. He was stuck between two worlds and hoped and still hoped he made the decision for his best self interest.

At four AM Carl emerged into the world, his cry loud and shrill, but beautiful, a welcomed noise to Rick’s tired ears. He held Carl to his breast, the midwife carefully showing Rick how to properly nurse him. It swelled in Rick chest, the love he felt for this small baby, like a vibrant song. The chorus weaving, winding, and lacing its way around his bones. He hummed softly, a tender tune, his heart and chest full as Carl nursed hungrily at his breast.

The moment he watched Carl take his first yawn, Rick swore everything he did he’d do for this child. He wouldn’t be pulled by Shane or his father, he’d follow the path that led to the best and happiest life for Carl. He’d die for Carl—still will—even now that he’s gone. Everything he does and ever did was for Carl.

…

Carl was a few months old when they returned home, wedding rings on Rick and Lori’s fingers, as they pull up to their new apartment, a small building surrounded by lush green trees. The air is fresh and sweet, a hot Georgian summer. Rick’s relief was short-lived as he took in his surroundings, dread and despair sinking his stomach to his feet. Shane’s rusted pickup truck waited in the driveway.

“Lori—” Rick breathed, words caught a knot in his throat.

She was sweet as honey and lavender with Rick, soothing and calm as she pressed a kiss to Rick’s jaw. “Give him a chance, Rick. He’s hurting and he wants a chance to be in Carl’s life. He won’t out you, but he wants to be there in some way shape or form.”

“I don’t want to hurt him again. I can’t hurt again,” Rick whispered, voice barely audible over the car’s engine. He tasted Shane’s last kiss, the sorrow and bitterness. Saw Shane’s face break over and over again, like a broken movie, the same image on repeat.

“I can’t tell you what to do, Rick, but if you want him in Carl’s life, let it happen.” Lori’s voice drifted over him, a comforting caress. Shane’s hands, the patterns they traced as they caressed Rick’s arms, filled Rick’s mind. His cereal-filled smile. The glee Shane felt and the thick disappointment upon learning about his fatherhood.

He yearned for Shane, like an alcoholic yearned desperately for booze. Carefully, with slow hesitant steps, Rick left the car, unhooking Carl from his carseat, his—Shane’s—son stirring with a soft whine. The screech of the truck door sounded behind Rick and he steeled himself for the ultimate confrontation, but it didn’t come.

“Rick,” Shane said softly, cautiously and it took everything in Rick to hold back tears. It felt right, welcoming and comforting, like a child’s blanket, being in Shane’s presence again.

“Shane,” Rick said, equally soft, but far less cautious. Certain and reassured in Shane’s second chance. And although it would never be perfect, wouldn’t be stitched up in an orderly fashion, Rick hoped they could heal. He wanted Shane in Carl’s life in whatever form Shane was willing to take. “Do want to hold him?”

“Yes, god, baby, yes.”

Rick, flushed, ears hot and the pits of his arms sweaty,  maneuvered Carl into Shane’s large arms. Shane eagerly accepted his son, cooing and awing softly, his eyes wet with wonder and awe. Carl, Rick thought, did his best not to cry, lower lip quivering as his face scrunched up. It looked like home, everything whole and wholesome. And Rick captured the picture in his mind, soft sunlight filtering over them, painting them yellow and white. Shane’s smile almost as bright as his sugar cereal coated teeth had been, as he gazed at Carl as if he were a precious stone. And Rick knew he was—still is.

“Carl, still needs a godfather,” Rick added slowly, cautiously.

Shane smiled, his eyes, however, distant. “Then I’ll be everything this baby needs in one.”

…

And for a long time, he was.

…

All the stitching and healing between them tore open a fresh wound when the world ended and Shane suspected Rick dead. He’d taken Carl as his own, Lori as his own—impregnated Lori with Judith. Rick, grateful for their safekeeping, however, felt the sharp edge of Shane’s anger upon his revival. The dead walking brought something out of Shane—something dark and hidden, something that reminded Rick of the threat of Shane’s teeth barely hovering over his throat on the night of Carl’s conception. It left an inevitable mark. An unseen scar that couldn’t be erased.

…

He remembers it, the feel of Shane’s blood slick on his fingers. The knife driven into Shane’s gut. He didn’t want it to end this way, never had. He didn’t want to lead them all, never had. But Carl’s safety, Lori’s safety, everyone’s safety, and Rick’s truth—were at risk. Shane, unhinged and unstable, threatened them all. And everything Rick did, he did for Carl. The knife thrust into Shane’s gut, the blood flowing over his fingers in thick red waves, was for Carl.

“Damn you for making me do this, Shane!” he cried, hearing the words not as his own, watching Shane’s lip fill and pool with blood. He thought of the cereal-coated teeth, the sweet and sorrowful bitter kiss. He heard the clock ring twelve and the world fall beneath his feet. Remembered the comforting swirl of Shane’s fingers tracing patterns on his arms as Shane struggled for life, lamely gripping at Rick’s arms, as if searching for something anything. Support. Reassurance, whether for himself or Rick, Rick didn't.

He saw the picture he took in his mind all yellows and whites. Remembered all the times Shane placed band-aids on Carl’s knees and kissed his cheek. He thought of the deep sorrow hidden behind Shane’s beautiful eyes, every time he thought Rick wasn’t looking. And maybe, like a drug, he’d driven Shane mad to begin with, planted the volatile seed inside his brain years ago when they fooled around on the couch, and it became something more. He loved—loves—Shane,like a badly stitched wound he knew would never heal.

“This was you, not me! Not me! You did this to us! This was you, not me! Not me!” His voice echoed across the night sky, desperate and lost, searching for something that he’ll never find again. Something lost years ago, in a polaroid picture morning, the small twin bed as Shane climbed on top of him, joy infectious as it had bubbled in Rick’s chest, little Carl just an unknown seed in Rick’s womb. Tears wellin Rick eyes, frantic angry things that he wished he could will away.

He remembers Shane’s words from that morning, hears them as clear as if they’d been just spoken; close, hot, and wet against his ear, as Shane loses his struggle for life beneath Rick. _“Good, baby, because I hate when you’re cross with me.”_

Rick remembers.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof, sorry for the sharick flashback. and thank you for milarca for saving my life over and over again. best beta ever. we return to our normal regan content next chapter.


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